


A Cunning Beast

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Chronicles of Riddick Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-02
Updated: 2011-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knew her name wasn't really her name and this faith wasn't her own. She had strange dreams she couldn't discuss and she had no place where she felt like she belonged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cunning Beast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beckyh2112](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beckyh2112/gifts).



The dreams made no sense. Her memory began after intense pain of the conversion chambers. Her abdomen and back contained a network of scars, and she knew she had been found more dead than alive by a Necromonger scouting crew. She had been brought back with them, converted and indoctrinated with the Necromonger faith. She looked in the mirror and had no recognition of the woman there, of the fierce expression on her face or the blonde hair. She was the handmaid for Captain Silaki's wife, the physically frail Lady Silaki, and she fulfilled her duties to the letter and no more. It gave her a place to stay, clothes on her back, food on her plate. Captain Silaki liked to say that the Underverse provided for them when his wife was ailing and lonely in the deeps of space, needing feminine companionship rather than coarse flight crew talk.

But her dreams were of the deeps of space, of infinite darkness and twinkling stars. Or blistering heat of deserts, silvery eyes and sharp pains where the scar tissue was. _I said I'd die for them. Not for you._

The dreams left her shaking when she woke, though she couldn't have said why. There was no use talking to Lady Silaki about the dreams; she was still a frail woman and not one given to put any stock in dreams. It was a wonder that Captain Silaki didn't try to send Lady Silaki to Underverse, but he was utterly devoted to her. She was not strong, but she was highly intelligent in many ways. Lady Silaki had named her Dremora, though she didn't know what was so important about the name. The two women were the only females on the scouting ship, and Lady Silaki kept Dremora next to her at all times. She knew it was the only thing that kept her physically safe from the ravenous stares of the flight crew. Though Necromongers were supposed to be above such fleshly needs, men were still men.

Dremora wondered at her past, at what sort of man she had been exposed to before. She didn't discuss it with Lady Silaki. She did as she was told, keeping her lips shut and her tongue still. Her mind wandered, but her mind was still her own.

Deep down, she knew Dremora was not her name and the Necromonger faith was not her own. She didn't believe in its tenets, didn't think there was a paradise for the full dead once they passed through the Gates into the Underverse. She would have called it bullshit, though she didn't believe in a God that would allow children and settlers to be carried off into the dark by hungry scavengers with claws and teeth. She didn't know what the creatures were, but they stalked her nightmares and could turn her dreams of spaceflight into miserable remembrances of pain and agony. Something happened to her, that was certain, but no one had known anything about her when she was found.

Captain Silaki declared their scouting mission complete some time later, and he announced that they were heading back to the Necropolis to discuss his findings with the Lord Marshall. Lady Silaki's cheeks actually looked somewhat pink, and she seemed less like a walking corpse than usual. Dremora wondered at that, though she didn't ask why mere mention of the Lord Marshall would be enough to pique her interest. Captain Silaki seemed inordinately pleased with being able to talk to the Lord Marshall personally. It was more the thought that perhaps he would be elevated from his station as Captain, and this told Dremora more than anything else how little he actually liked being on a scout mission and preferred to be in the thick of society. That likely explained why he was as devoted to Lady Silaki as he was, as she was much more adept at the social niceties than he was. Dremora would inadvertently be drawn into whatever schemes the pair would try to develop; handmaids inevitably heard more gossip than the lords and ladies at court. She might have despised court intrigues, but she was bound to go wherever the Silakis went.

Right now, that meant deep into the heart of the Necropolis.

***

Captain Silaki presented his findings from the scouting party, though Dremora could tell that he was disconcerted by the sight of the Lord Marshall. The Lady Silaki had been even more out of sorts, but there was no way for her to ask why. Lady Silaki was practically shaking, and Dremora thought perhaps it was outrage. This was confirmed after the fact, as they were going back toward the quarters prepared for the Silakis. "Damned usurper. This isn't right!" the Lady Silaki hissed.

"Quiet!" Captain Silaki hissed. "It had to have been honorable combat. Would you have him or one of his guards hear you and condemn you for your treasonous words! Keep that tongue silent, woman. Your initial schemes are what sent us on that scouting mission!"

The angry words were the first that Dremora had heard the Captain offer his wife, and she was suitably chastened. Dremora slept in her pallet at the foot of their bed that night, listening to the Captain take his wife with an edge of savagery that usually wasn't present. It was confirmed in the morning by the bruises and welts on the Lady Silaki's deathly pale skin. She actually lowered her eyes from Dremora's and simply asked for the high necked and long sleeved gown that she rarely wore.

Dremora followed Lady Silaki through the halls of the Necropolis, ears open and eyes lowered. Most of the court seemed to be nothing but gossip mongers, which made Dremora's skin crawl.

"What's this?" came a smooth voice behind Dremora. The tittering voices all around her fell silent, and she kept her head bowed. The voice was familiar somehow, and not just because of the few words that had been spoken the night before. Something about the smell of beautiful. Something about leaving others behind.

Then the memories slipped away, back into the darkened ether of her mind.

"Lord Marshall," one of the women said, rising to her feet to sketch a bow. It was Lady Vaako, and Dremora didn't like the cant of her lips as she said the words. It would only be a matter of time before she plotted against the Lord Marshall, Dremora was sure of that. "We were discussing the latest fashion at court."

"Of course you were." His voice was cool and amused, making Lady Vaako bristle as if he had offered insult. "Do go on. Enlighten me."

The ladies continued their talk of clothing and fashions, and Dremora was grateful when Lady Silaki made her excuses after a time. Rising to her feet, she found herself staring straight into the silvery eyes of the Lord Marshall. They were the same silvery eyes she had dreamed of since waking up after her conversion. He had gone very still at the sight of her, and the chittering voices of the court ladies fell silent around them. "Carolyn," he rasped, sounding as if he was shocked to see her.

"My Lord Marshall," Lady Silaki said, somewhat confused. "You must be mistaken. This is my handmaiden Dremora."

He turned his ghostly silver eyes toward her, and Dremora suddenly had the sensation that she had seen that expression on his face before, and that he had been carrying a finely honed knife in hand at the time. It was dark and raining, and he was running on sheer instinct. _We're all going to die,_ she remembered thinking. Then her memory skipped forward to pain and his cries of outrage and misery. _Not for me!_

"Is it?" he asked, seeing the blank expression on her face, the pale skin and the conversion marks on her neck. "Well, then. I'll leave you ladies to your fashions." There was something odd about his voice, about the way his eyes slid across Dremora's features.

Of course Lady Vaako noticed it. She noticed everything and had the cunning of a viper. Really, it was only a matter of time before she found something she considered a weakness in this Furyan Lord Marshall.

As far as she was concerned, she just found it.

As far as slights go, the catty remark Lady Silaki had made about Lady Vaako's dress had been minor and nothing that hadn't already been said. Dremora had been kneeling beside Lady Silaki as usual, but had raised her head in surprise when Lady Vaako suddenly hissed "I demand satisfaction, Isalda. Choose your weapon and your second."

Lady Silaki choked, looking startled. "What?"

"Are you refusing challenge, Isalda?" Lady Vaako purred, eyes glinting with barely suppressed glee. Dremora suddenly was reminded of those shadowy creatures of her nightmares, pain flaring beneath her scar tissue. "Don't tell me you actually have fear?"

The sneer on Lady Silaki's lips was as false as Lady Vaako's orthodoxy to the Necromonger faith. "Tsiki blades. Minha Erinth."

It was a mistake as soon as the name left Lady Silaki's lips, but Dremora couldn't countermand her mistress' orders. Lady Erinth was skilled in short blades, but tsiki blades were too long to be comfortable for the petite woman. They looked impressive, but required a lot of skill to use properly. Lady Silaki might have once had the skill, but she hadn't trained in the long years of Dremora's service and Lady Erinth had been chosen more for her friendship.

Dremora later watched numbly as Lady Vaako gutted Lady Silaki on the challenge floor, the bright red blood pooling beneath her. Lady Vaako strode to stand over her, a sneer of contempt on her face. "All that was yours is now mine." She swiftly brought the tsiki blade across Lady Silaki's throat for a quick kill, and she looked over at the assemblage that had watched the duel. "You keep what you kill."

Lady Vaako was staring right at Dremora.

***

Lord and Lady Vaako spent a lot of time at court. While it was readily apparent that Lord Vaako took his duties seriously to aid the Lord Marshall, Lady Vaako was ambitious and always looking for an angle to replace the Lord Marshall with her husband. What Lady Vaako didn't seem to realize was that the Lord Marshall knew this, his silver eyes watching her schemes in amusement. He was less amused when Dremora showed up behind her, trailing with her head bowed as was proper. She stood behind Lady Vaako in the proper position, knowing full well that the Lord Marshall's eyes were on her.

Everything made sense in that moment. Dremora wasn't sure if the Lord Marshall realized what Lady Vaako's intention was, but it was immediately clear to her. She was a distraction. He thought she was someone he knew, and Lady Vaako intended to use her presence at court to distract the Lord Marshall from her true intentions.

The Lord Marshall's silver eyes tracked her every motion, even though the half gloom of the audience chamber should have made it difficult. Court attendees were used to this quirk, though Dremora suddenly had flashes of darkness and pain beneath the scar tissue, of keening noises and her own voice rising in a scream of shock. The creatures from her nightmares lived in darkness, sunlight burning their skin. They hunted in the dark, knowing full well that their usual prey could not see.

But the Lord Marshall could see very well, and he knew where everyone was in the audience chamber. Lady Vaako didn't realize this, and thought the lack of bright lights was simply an affectation to intimidate. It was more than that, though Dremora didn't know how she knew that. She also couldn't explain why she was suddenly carrying smaller versions of the tsiki blades strapped to her forearms, hidden beneath the folds of her servant's dress. Though she was bound to serve Lady Vaako's interests however it was demanded of her, there were no demands placed upon her at all. Lady Vaako attended to her own toilette, looked after her own clothes and did not want a handmaiden at the foot of her bed as was custom. She gave Dremora a small space to call her own and merely had her follow the noblewoman through the Necropolis. Lady Vaako's thoughts were entirely her own, and they ran along the lines of duplicity and treachery. Lady Vaako had no one's interests at heart but her own. Dremora thought that perhaps even Lord Vaako would be expendable if his station wasn't high enough.

"Vaako," the Lord Marshall called out as the daily reports were completed. "You stay."

He was a man of few words, and those tended to be growled. Dremora knew that Lady Vaako referred to him as a beast in privacy, sometimes a cunning beast, but Lady Vaako didn't credit him for much more than that. She insisted that he was an outsider to the faith, that he clearly didn't believe what they did and wanted to undermine the religion from the inside out. She insisted that he couldn't allow the faith to be shredded as it was, that he had to do something about it. Lord Vaako sometimes struck her for the traitorous words, but Dremora could also see that in time he would act. She had the feeling it had been done before.

Lord Vaako nodded and remained at his post. "Of course, Lord Marshall. Are we to discuss the positions of the fleet?"

The Lord Marshall's eyes flicked over to Lord Vaako, no change of expression in his tone. "We'll get to that. But I was referring to her," he said, lifting his hand to point to Lady Vaako. She froze, looking up at the Lord Marshall. Dremora kept her head down and repressed a smirk. She could almost feel Lady Vaako's thoughts turning in her head, trying to see if she had made some kind of mistake that would get her killed. "Yeah, you," the Lord Marshall continued when Lady Vaako didn't move. "C'mere."

There was underlying menace in his tone, and Dremora could almost remember hearing it before. The uniform that the Lord Marshall wore didn't hide his musculature at all, but Dremora somehow knew what he would look like in just a tank top, warm skin tones flush with sweat from exertion. He could carry a sled full of supplies, and she could almost hear his voice saying "Just keep the light on my back." The creatures from her nightmares keened in the distance, hungry and waiting.

Then her thoughts snapped to the present as Lady Vaako cautiously moved forward, twisting her expression into obsequiousness. "My Lord," Lady Vaako said as she approached the dais, head bowed just enough to be deemed proper. Dremora found the weight of the short blades against her arms a comfort. Everyone knew the tenets of the faith, and the very first was to protect the Lord Marshall as he guided them to Underverse.

The Lord Marshall simply waited, and eventually Lady Vaako looked up. She should have been acknowledged already, and she burned with subtle insult. Cunning beast, indeed.

"Did I say you can look up?" he asked, voice like a whip crack. For someone only recently come into the title, he knew how to weild the authority of the Lord Marshall's position.

She looked down again, chastened and frowning. She didn't know what to do now, as this completely was outside what she had planned. "My Lord..." she began uncertainly.

"Did I say you can speak?" the Lord Marshall snarled. Even Lord Vaako looked perturbed by this exchange, but he made no move to question the Lord Marshall's authority. He took his duties seriously, after all. He believed in the faith utterly. Lady Vaako didn't know the servant's tricks for observing everyone around her without appearing to do so, and it galled her that she was unable to see the Lord Marshall's face to gauge what would happen next.

He turned to Lord Vaako as if this was an ordinary occurrence. The great hall was otherwise empty, and Dremora wondered what the Lord Marshall's purpose was. "Lords are supposed to control their Ladies, right?" the Lord Marshall drawled, watching the pair of nobles closely.

"There are expectations in comportment, Lord Marshall," Lord Vaako replied without inflection. "It is not always easy to conform to them."

"I see that." The Lord Marshall's voice was clipped. "She isn't faithful. Not to you and definitely not to me."

Lady Vaako gasped in outrage and looked up. "That's a lie!" she snapped, unable to control her temper.

Lord Vaako frowned deeply at her, but held his tongue and looked at the Lord Marshall. He didn't say anything, and the Lord Marshall stopped slouching in his seat. "You don't think I know what you say, do you, Lady?" The title was no more than a sneer of contempt. "You don't think there are ways of me finding out? That there are spies everywhere? You quote your scriptures well, but you don't live by it unless it suits you." He steepled his fingers and sat in a sprawled position on the throne, and Dremora somehow sensed that he was armed. It wasn't obvious, but she _knew_ he was presenting himself as a target to test Lady Vaako.

"Would I be able to defend myself, my Lord Marshall?" she asked, barely able to restrain herself from snapping again.

"That's why we're talking," he replied, rising to his feet in a deceptively lazy motion. "You know what happens to traitors, after all."

Death and dishonor, without any hope of reaching the Underverse.

Dremora knew from whispers that the current Lord Marshall had significant fighting ability. He had to fight to take current command, and she knew that Lady Vaako had been there when it happened. Surely she wouldn't think she could do significant harm to him here? But she looked up at her husband then at the Lord Marshall, and smiled her catlike smile. "Of course, my Lord Marshall. All I do, I do in the name of the faith. To strengthen it, to keep it pure and holy, to be sure the fleet reaches Underverse without any of us perishing before our due time." The bravado was back as the Lord Marshall stepped closer. "Our role is to help you however we can, my Lord. If I knew the specific accusations I could present the truth..."

"That rule. You keep what you kill." His lips stretched back from teeth in something little more than a grimace. "Seems like you keep an awful lot of things."

"Slights and insults hardly seem to be the kind of information the Lord Marshall should be listening to..." Lady Vaako began.

"And you use those things," he continued, ignoring her. He was a half step closer than before. "Seems like there are an awful lot of people around you that seem to suddenly die. Or turn traitor." He started to circle Lady Vaako, and he stopped when he was near Dremora, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder. The weight of it was familiar, and she nearly shook at the contact. "But you don't got as many advisors on your side as you think."

"I have to plead ignorance to whatever it is you think I've done..."

The Lord Marshall looked at Lord Vaako, who managed to keep a straight face. "Read the list."

Lady Vaako stood stock still as Lord Vaako produced a list and read off names of various people that Lady Vaako had either engineered the death for or had killed herself. It also contained known traitors to the prior Lord Marshall and some of her closest companions now. Dremora knew what they whispered about, their machinations to eliminate those who were loyal to the regime and to Lord Marshall by default. Lord Vaako was very still when he put down the list, and he looked at a spot over her head. Dremora suddenly knew who had provided the list to the Lord Marshall, and it seemed as though Lady Vaako's carefully contrived plot was unraveling around her.

She realized it too, because suddenly she whirled around with her hairpins in hand. They were actually edged and could pierce armor, though the Lord Marshall wasn't wearing any. She moved quickly, knowing that she was about to be deemed a traitor in her own right. There was no law but the Lord Marshall's law, and she didn't want to have him declare her traitor and a threat. Dremora moved swifly, the knives at her forearms suddenly in her hands. She pushed one into Lady Vaako's chest and the other cut across her wrist. It wasn't enough to sever tendons, but enough to change the trajectory of the deadly hairpins. The Lord Marshall had moved just as fast, a wicked blade in hand. It ran across Lady Vaako's throat smoothly, and she almost didn't feel it.

"Someone else will clean up the body," the Lord Marshall told Lord Vaako, who couldn't watch as his wife tumbled down the steps to the dais. "You were right to tell me what you did."

"I am loyal to the faith," he said, his voice strained.

"She would've made you stray, Vaako," the Lord Marshall told him. "You would've been her patsy, and no one would know how hard you worked to keep your men safe." He moved in front of Lord Vaako. "We'll talk later about the fleet."

"And my wife's property?" Lord Vaako asked, looking over to Dremora.

"I'm keeping her," the Lord Marshall told him, no particular inflection in his tone. "You can keep the rest." He waited until after Lord Vaako nodded and left the room. "You can relax now, Carolyn. No one else is here."

"My name is Dremora, my Lord," she told him, only just realizing that she was still in an attacker's stance. She didn't know how she knew the move, but she had to have had training at some point in her life. She stayed very still as the Lord Marshall approached her slowly. "I cannot remember any other."

"You don't remember being a pilot, then?" he asked, voice deceptively soft in the empty room. "Don't remember Hades or those fucking demons? Don't remember the holy man? Jack? Finding that old settlement on that planet? Needing the light to survive? Telling me you'd die for everyone else except me?"

The knives fell from her hands and she pressed them to the spot where the scar tissue was hidden beneath her robes. "I... I don't..." She looked up at him helplessly, remembering vague snatches of nightmare that might have also been memory. "Riddick, I don't remember..."

He caught the back of her head in one of his massive hands and she instantly fell silent. "What did you call me?"

"I don't know. Lord Marshall..."

"That wasn't it. You called me a name. None of those Necros here call me that." He pulled her closer, silvery eyes taking in her expression avidly. "You remember something. Maybe not enough, and I saw the files about you. You _lived,_ Carolyn." There was something in her eyes that was almost recognition. He watched her closely, something that recalled the dreams she had sometimes. "You lived," he repeated quietly. "It's in there, somewhere. It'll come back to you. These things always come back."

"And if it doesn't?" she asked quietly as he let go of her head.

He contemplated her for a moment. "Depends. Are you with me?"

She knew those silver eyes, though it was more of a feeling than a fully formed memory. He was lethal and potentially brutal, had enjoyed the kill. But he also had a strange sort of honor, and he had worked to help save lives on Hades even when he didn't have to.

Her lips moved without her realizing it. "Yes, Riddick. This time I'm with you."

Riddick grinned, a frightening display of teeth and the flash of his silver eyes. "Then it'll come back to you. I can be patient."

A cunning beast, Lady Vaako had said. He was a predator, and like all predators knew when to lie in wait. She dimly remembered that, knew it to be an absolute certainty about him. She took his proferred hand and let him lead her out of court. She might not have remembered that her name was Carolyn, but everything he did imply pushed her dreams and nightmares into a certain kind of sense. Her instincts might have screamed around him, but she wasn't the prey for this predator.

The other Necromongers were. They just didn't know it yet.

The End


End file.
